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Rebel advocate: Obama's call for Syria probe 'a bluff'

Supporters of rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad expressed disappointment Tuesday at President Obama's insistence that the United States needs more more facts about Assad's use chemical weapons before ordering American response.

BERLIN — Supporters of rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad expressed disappointment Tuesday at President Obama's insistence that the United States needs more facts about Assad's use of chemical weapons before ordering American response.

"Obama will never get the concrete evidence he wants unless there's a full U.N. investigation, to which Assad will not agree," said Abdulwahab Omar, a Syrian anti-Assad activist based in London.

"That means Obama will never be obliged to do anything," he said. "You can call it a bluff. He tried to show that the United States would be prepared to intervene when things get serious, when in reality, the U.S. is not prepared to intervene unless its own interests are directly affected."

At a news conference Tuesday at the White House, Obama said the United States has evidence chemical weapons were used in Syria but does not know who used them. Until that is clear, the U.S. would not make any decisions on how to respond, he said.

When reports surfaced last year that the Syrian army had deployed chemical weapons, Obama was pressed on whether the use of such weapons would prompt him to order some form of U.S. military intervention to stop it. Syrian rebels have been asking Western nations to enforce a no-fly zone over Syria as they did in Libya to prevent the slaughter of opposition forces there in 2011.

Obama said in August that a "red line" for the United States would be if "we see a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around, or being utilized. That would change my calculus."

The Syrian regime denies using weapons and says the rebels have used them.

Reports surfaced again last month that Syria has used chemical weapons against the rebels. Last week, the chief of intelligence for the Israeli Defense Forces said Israel had determined that Assad had used a form of nerve gas on civilians in rebel strongholds.

In response to questions from Congress, the White House said last week that it believed "with varying degrees of confidence" that the Syrian government used a small quantity of sarin gas in its battles with rebels.

On Tuesday, reporters asked Obama whether he would respond militarily if he were satisfied that Syria crossed his "red line."

"We would have to rethink the range of options before us," he said, and added that the use of chemical weapons is worrying because they could fall into the hands of anti-American factions.

Abdulwahab Omar believes that is the only red line Obama is concerned about.

"What he really meant is if chemical weapons are used in such a way that they might be considered a threat to U.S. interests," he said. "The chemical attacks that have (been carried out) by the Assad regime are small-scale and only against Syrians — they did not have international consequences. As a result, Obama will not do anything."

The Obama administration has said it supports an investigation by the United Nations to determine how the chemical weapons were used. But the U.N. has already initiated an investigation that stalled when Assad refused permission for investigators to enter the country.

"Proof can only be achieved through full, impartial investigations," Omar said. "This is something that you cannot do in the war zone. The Assad regime will not allow it to happen."

Omar says Obama is saving face and that if the United States had any real interest in aiding the fall of the Assad regime, it would have done so by now.

The U.N. says about 80,000 Syrians have been killed in the conflict that began in March 2011.

"We are two years into this conflict. Pretty much every atrocity the regime can do, it has done. Mass killings, executions, the use of scud missiles, chemical weapons," he said. "There's not much left for the regime to do that would bring the Obama administration's conscience out."